Object determining system and electronic apparatus applying the object determining system

ABSTRACT

Disclosed is an object determining system comprising an optical sensor, a kind determining circuit and an element analyzing circuit. The optical sensor comprises a kind determining region and an element analyzing region, wherein the optical sensor captures at least one object image of an object via the kind determining region, and acquires element analyzing optical data via the element analyzing region. The kind determining circuit is configured to determine an object kind of the object according to the object image. The element analyzing circuit is configured to analyze element of the object according to the element analyzing optical data and the object kind. An object determining system applying tow stage object sensing steps to determine an object kind is also disclosed.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of applicant's earlier application,Ser. No. 16/022,719, filed Jun. 29, 2018, and is included herein byreference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an object determining system and anelectronic apparatus applying the object determining system, andparticularly relates an object determining system applying two stagesteps and an electronic apparatus applying the object determiningsystem.

2. Description of the Prior Art

A conventional sweetness meter can be applied to measure the sweetnesslevel of an object based on a spectrum of the object. For example, asweetness meter can emit light to an object and then calculates thesweetness level of the object based on a spectrum for reflected lightfrom the object.

However, the conventional sweetness meter needs the user to set a properobject kind, or the calculated sweetness level maybe incorrect. Forexample, if the object is an apple but the user sets the object as aguava for sweetness calculating. The calculated sweetness level maybeincorrect.

Besides, a robot cleaner becomes more and more popular for each family.However, the conventional robot cleaner could not determine which is infront of it, thus may cause some terrible results if the robot cleanermoves over some objects need to be avoided.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

One objective of the present invention is to provide an objectdetermining system which can determine an object kind and thenaccordingly determine the object element.

One embodiment of the present application is to provide an objectdetermining system comprising an optical sensor, a kind determiningcircuit and an element analyzing circuit. The optical sensor comprises akind determining region and an element analyzing region, wherein theoptical sensor captures at least one object image of an object via thekind determining region, and acquires element analyzing optical data viathe element analyzing region. The kind determining circuit is configuredto determine an object kind of the object according to the object image.The element analyzing circuit is configured to analyze element of theobject according to the element analyzing optical data and the objectkind.

An electronic apparatus applying the above-mentioned object determiningsystem and can select an operation mode based on object element is alsodisclosed in another embodiment of the present invention.

In view of above-mentioned embodiments, the object kind or objectelement can be automatically acquired, and an electronic apparatus cancorrespondingly select a proper operation based on the object kind orobject element. Therefore, the issues for prior art can be resolved.

These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt becomeobvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading thefollowing detailed description of the preferred embodiment that isillustrated in the various figures and drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an object determining systemaccording to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 are examples for the optical sensor in FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating operations for the kinddetermining circuit and the element analyzing circuit according to oneembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an example for a practical application for the objectdetermining system illustrated in FIG. 1.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating an object determining systemaccording to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 7-11 are schematic diagrams illustrating operations for an objectdetermining system according to embodiments of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Several embodiments are provided in following descriptions to explainthe concept of the present application. Please note, the components ineach embodiment can be implemented by hardware (ex. circuit orapparatus) or by firmware, software (ex. a processor installed with atleast one program). Additionally, the components in each embodiment canbe separated to more components or be integrated to fewer components.Also, the steps illustrated in following embodiments can be separatedinto more steps or integrated into fewer steps. Such variation shouldfall in the scope of the present application.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an object determining systemaccording to one embodiment of the present invention. As illustrated inFIG. 1, the object determining system 100 comprises an optical sensor101, a kind determining circuit 103 and an element analyzing circuit105. The optical sensor 101 is a sensor can generate an optical image OIand element analyzing optical data OD. The optical sensor 101 comprisesa kind determining region and an element analyzing region. The opticalsensor 101 captures at least one object image OI of an object via thekind determining region, and acquires element analyzing optical data ODvia the element analyzing region. The kind determining region and theelement analyzing region will be described for more details later. Also,the kind determining circuit 103 determines an object kind OK of theobject according to the object image OI. Besides, the element analyzingcircuit 105 analyzes element of the object according to the elementanalyzing optical data OD and the object kind OK, to generate an elementanalyzing result Ear.

In one embodiment, the kind determining region and the element analyzingregion are defined by color filters provided on the optical sensor 101.For more detail, a normal color filter such as a RGB color filter or aCMYG color filter is provided on the kind determining region, and amulti-spectral color filter is provided on the element analyzing region.The multi-spectral color filter can be, for example, a color filterarray has multi parts, and each part comprises color filters havingspectrums different from other parts. Therefore, the abovementionedelement analyzing optical data OD can be a spectrum of the object. Thusthe element analyzing circuit 105 can analyze the element of the objectbased on the element analyzing optical data OD. However, the kinddetermining region and the element analyzing region can be defined byother methods.

FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 are examples for the optical sensor 101 in FIG. 1. Inthe example of FIG. 2, the optical sensor 101 comprises a plurality ofmix regions MR_1, MR_2, MR_3, which have square shapes. Please note, forthe convenience of understanding, only three mix regions MR_1, MR_2,MR_3 are marked. The mix regions MR_1, MR_2, MR_3 have identical shapes,and each of them comprises a part of the kind determining region and apart of the element analyzing region. Take the mix region MR_1 forexample, in the embodiment of FIG. 3, the kind determining regioncomprises a red region Rr, a green region Gr and a blue region Br. Thered region Rr, the green region Gr and the blue region Br respectivelyoccupies one quarter of the mix region MR_1, thus the kind determiningregion occupies three quarters of the mix region MR_1. Also, the elementanalyzing region Er occupies one quarter of the mix region MR_1.

Please note the arrangement for the kind determining region and theelement analyzing region is not limited to the embodiment illustrated inFIG. 2. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 3, the element analyzingregion Er is surrounding the kind determining region Kr, which alsocomprises the red region Rr, the green region Gr and the blue region Br.In other words, the element analyzing region Er is a square with ahollow part, and the kind determining region Kr is a square located inthe hollow part.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating operations for the kinddetermining circuit and the element analyzing circuit according to oneembodiment of the present invention. As above-mentioned, firstly thekind determining circuit 103 determines an object kind OK of the object(ex. an apple, a plate, a glass . . . etc.) according to the objectimage OI. After that, the kind determining circuit 103 transmits theobject kind OK to the element analyzing circuit 105, to analyze element(ex. sweetness, water content, metal content . . . etc.) of the objectaccording to the element analyzing optical data OD and element analyzingdata base related with the object. For example, if the optical sensor101 captures an image of an apple, the kind determining circuit 103 canrefer a kind determining data base stored in a storage device 107 inFIG. 1 to determine the object in the image is an apple. Then, theelement analyzing circuit 105 analyzes element of the object accordingto the element analyzing optical data OD and an element analyzing database related with an apple. In one embodiment, the element analyzingdata base can be stored in the storage device 107 in FIG. 1 as well.Please note, the above-mentioned kind determining data base and elementanalyzing data base are not limited to be acquired from a storage devicein the object determining system 100.

The above-mentioned “object kind” can have different detail levels. Forexample, the kind determining circuit 103 can determine the object is“apple” according to the object image OI. However, the kind determiningcircuit 103 can further determine the object is “granny smith” or a“Fugi apple” according to the object image OI. How detail the “objectkind” is can be decided based on the content of the kind determiningdata base and the setting provided by the user.

In one embodiment, the element analyzing circuit 105 and the kinddetermining circuit 103 can be implemented by independent hardware. Forexample, the kind determining circuit is implemented by a sub-controller(ex. an IC) and the element analyzing circuit is implemented by a maincontroller (ex. a processor dependent from the IC) independent fromsub-controller. Also, the main controller is in a sleep mode until thesub-controller wakes up the main controller. The sub-controller can wakeup the main controller while it determines an object exists, or wake upthe main controller while a user triggers the function of “analyzing anobject”. By this way, the power consumption can be decreased since theelement analyzing circuit 105 needs more power to perform more datacomputing to analyze an element of the object.

FIG. 5 is an example for a practical application for the objectdetermining system 100 illustrated in FIG. 1. Please refer to FIGS. 1-3and FIG. 5 to understand the concept of the present invention for moreclear. In one embodiment, the object determining system 100 is providedin a mobile phone M. A user U uses the mobile phone M to take a picturefor an object 501 (i.e. capture an object image) via the kinddetermining region Kr of the optical sensor 101, and the kinddetermining circuit 103 determines the object 501 is an apple based onthe picture. Element analyzing optical data OD is also acquired via theelement analyzing region Er of the optical sensor 101. Moreover, thekind determining circuit 103 transmits the object Ok to the elementanalyzing circuit 105. After that, the element analyzing circuit 105analyzes element of the object 501 according to the element analyzingoptical data OD and an element analyzing data base related with anapple, to generate an element analyzing result Ear.

Please note, the object determining system 100 provided by the presentinvention is not limited to be applied to a mobile phone. In oneembodiment, the object determining system 100 is provided in anelectronic apparatus having a processing circuit, which is configured toselect an operation mode of the electronic apparatus based on theelement analyzing result from the element analyzing circuit 105. Theprocessing circuit can be integrated to the kind determining circuit 103and/or the element analyzing circuit 105, or be independent from thekind determining circuit 103 and/or the element analyzing circuit 105.

In one embodiment, the electronic apparatus is an optical trackingapparatus, and the processing circuit selects a tracking mode of theelectronic apparatus based on the element analyzing result. For example,the electronic apparatus is an optical mouse, which can analyze theelement for a mouse pad below the optical mouse. In such example, theprocessing circuit can select a high tracking mode or a low trackingmode of the electronic apparatus based on the element for the mouse pad.

In another embodiment, the electronic apparatus is a clean machine, andthe processing circuit selects a clean power of the electronic apparatusbased on the element analyzing result. For example, the electronicapparatus is a vacuum cleaner or a robot cleaner, which can analyze theground there below. In such example, the processing circuit can select apowerful clean mode or a weak clean mode (i.e. select a clean power) ofthe electronic apparatus based on the element for the ground.

In still another embodiment, the electronic apparatus is a smartwearable electronic apparatus, and the processing circuit selects alight emitting mode or a parameter calculating mode of the electronicapparatus based on the element analyzing result. For example, theelectronic apparatus is a smart watch or a smart bracelet, which cananalyze the object there below. In such example, the processing circuitcan select a light emitting mode or a parameter calculating mode (i.e.use which calculating algorithm) of the electronic apparatus based onthe condition for the object below the electronic apparatus. Forexample, a proper light emitting mode or a parameter calculating modecan be selected based on whether the electronic apparatus touches theskin of a user. For another example, a proper light emitting mode or aparameter calculating mode can be selected based on whether the objectis a living object or a non-living object. The above-mentioned parametercalculating can mean, for example, calculating a heart rate of a user,or calculating a blood pressure of the user.

Briefly, the above-mentioned embodiments apply two stage steps toanalyze an object. The first stage step determines the object kind andthe second stage step analyzes the element of the object based on theobject kind. The concept of two stage steps can be implemented inanother aspect, as explained in following embodiments of the presentinvention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating an object determining systemaccording to another embodiment of the present invention. As illustratedin FIG. 6, the object determining system 600 comprises a processingcircuit 601, a first stage object sensor Os_1 and a second stage objectsensor Os_2. The first stage object sensor Os_1 is configured togenerate a first stage object sensing result Osr_1. The second stageobject sensor Os_2 is configured to generate a second stage objectsensing result Osr_2 of an object if the processing circuit 601determines the object exists in a predetermined range of the objectdetermining system 600 based on the first stage object sensing resultOsr_1. After that, the processing circuit 601 further determines anobject kind of the object based on the second stage object sensingresult Osr_2.

In one embodiment, the object determining system 600 further comprises aline light source configured to generate line light and an area lightsource configured to generate plane light. In such embodiment, the firststage object sensor Os_1 generates the first stage object sensing resultOsr_1 based on the line light, and the second object sensor Os_2generates the second object detecting result Osr_2 based on the squarelight. It will be appreciated that the first stage object sensor Os_1and the second stage object sensor Os_2 can operate in any kind oflight.

FIGS. 7-11 are schematic diagrams illustrating operations for an objectdetermining system according to embodiments of the present invention. Inthese embodiments, the object determining system 600 is provided in arobot cleaner 700. Also, in these embodiments the above-mentioned firststage object sensor Os_1 is a depth sensor and the second stage objectsensor Os_2 is an image sensor. Therefore, the first stage objectsensing result Osr_1 is depth information and the second object sensorOs_2 is an image. The depth sensor can be, for example, a laser depthsensor or any other optical sensor.

As illustrated in FIG. 7 and FIG. 8 which is a schematic diagramfollowing a view in the X direction in FIG. 7, in a first stage objectsensing step, the robot cleaner 700 applies the line light source 701 toemit line light LL, and applies the processing circuit 601 to determineif any object exists in a predetermined range of the robot cleaner 700(i.e. in a predetermined range of the object determining system) basedon first stage object sensing result Osr_1. If no object exists in apredetermined range of the robot cleaner 700, the depth sensed by thefirst stage object sensor Os_1 is large. On the opposite, if objectexists in a predetermined range of the robot cleaner 700, the depthsensed by the first stage object sensor Os_1 is small. Therefore, thedepth sensor can be applied to sense if any object exists in apredetermined range of the robot cleaner 700. Moreover, since only theexistence for the object is determined in the first stage object sensingstep, no details of the object is needed. Therefore, the line lightsource 701 can provide enough light to determine the existence of theobject.

In the embodiments illustrated in FIG. 7 and FIG. 8, the objectsOb_1-Ob_3 is in front of the robot cleaner 700 (i.e. in a predeterminedrange of the robot cleaner 700), thus the line light LL from the linelight source 701 can emit the objects Ob_1-Ob_3 and the processingcircuit 601 can determine the objects Ob_1-Ob_3 exist according to thesensing result of the first stage object sensor Os_1 generated based onthe line light LL.

In the second stage object sensing step, as illustrated in FIG. 9 andFIG. 10 which is a schematic diagram following a view in the Y directionin FIG. 9, the robot cleaner 700 applies the area light source 901 toemit square light SL, and applies the processing circuit 601 todetermine an object kind of the object according to the second stageobject sensing result Osr_2 (object image in this embodiment) generatedbased on the square light SL. Since the object kind is determined in thesecond stage object sensing step, more details for the object maybeneeded, thus applying area light source 901 is more helpful fordetermining the object kind. In one embodiment, the object kind can bedetermined, for example, an object kind data based stored in the storagedevice 107 or any other storage device.

Please note, the first stage object sensor Os_1 is not limited to adepth sensor and the second stage object sensor Os_2 is not limited toan image sensor. Any sensor which can be applied to implement theabove-mentioned functions should fall in the scope of the presentapplication. For example, in one embodiment, the first stage objectsensor is a thermal sensor. Also, the second object sensor can be athermal sensor as well.

Also, in one embodiment, the second object sensor Os_2 is in a sleepmode until the processing circuit 601 determines the object exists inthe predetermined range of the robot cleaner 700 based on the firststage object sensing result Osr_1. Since the second object sensor Os_2needs more power than the first object sensor Os_1, more power can besaved by this way.

Besides, in one embodiment, the object determining system 600 furthercomprises a third stage object sensor (not illustrated), which isconfigured to generate a third stage object sensing result of the objectif the processing circuit 601 determines the object exists in thepredetermined range of the object determining system 600 based on thefirst stage object sensing result Osr_1. After that, the processingcircuit 601 determines the object kind based on both the second stageobject sensing result and the third stage object sensing result. In suchembodiment, the second object sensor Os_2 is an image sensor and thethird stage object sensor is a thermal sensor.

After the object kind is determined, the above-mentioned robot cleaner700 can operate based on the object kind. For example, if the objectkind indicates the object is a dirty stuff such as stool, the robotcleaner 700 may stop or turn to another direction to avoid the object,or the ground may become horrible if the robot cleaner 700 tries toclean the object. Also, if the object is a sharp object such as a nail,the object may break the robot cleaner 700 if the object is sucked intothe robot cleaner 700. It should be noted that the object determiningsystem 600 is not limited to be applied to a robot cleaner 700. Theobject determining system 600 can be applied to any other electronicapparatus which can operate based on the determined object kind.

In one embodiment, the second stage object sensing result Osr_2 canfurther be applied to optimize the object kind data base. As illustratedin FIG. 11, in one embodiment, a user uses a mobile phone M to controlthe robot cleaner 700, and the second stage object sensing result Osr_2is an object image. In such case, the object determining system in therobot cleaner 700 can transmit the second stage object sensing resultOsr_2 to the mobile phone of the user, and the user can determine if thesecond stage object sensing result Osr_2 shows an object needed to beavoided. If the user determines the object is needed to be avoided, hecan send a confirm command (ex. press the “yes” icon in FIG. 11) via themobile phone M to the robot cleaner 700, and the robot cleaner 700 canoptimize the object kind data base based on the confirm command from theuser.

Object determining methods can be acquired based on above-mentionedembodiments, but are not illustrated for brevity here.

In view of above-mentioned embodiments, the object kind or objectelement can be automatically acquired, and an electronic apparatus cancorrespondingly select a proper operation based on the object kind orobject element. Therefore, the issues for prior art can be resolved.

Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerousmodifications and alterations of the device and method may be made whileretaining the teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the abovedisclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and boundsof the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. An object determining system, comprising: anoptical sensor, comprising a kind determining region and an elementanalyzing region, wherein the optical sensor captures at least oneobject image of an object via the kind determining region, and acquireselement analyzing optical data via the element analyzing region, whereinthe kind determining region and the element analyzing region aredifferent regions of the optical sensor; a kind determining circuit,configured to determine an object kind of the object according to theobject image; and an element analyzing circuit, configured to analyzeelement of the object according to the element analyzing optical dataand the object kind.
 2. The object determining system of claim 1,wherein the element analyzing region comprises a multi-spectral colorfilter provided thereon.
 3. The object determining system of claim 1,wherein the element analyzing region is surrounding the kind determiningregion.
 4. The object determining system of claim 1, wherein the opticalsensor comprises a plurality of mix regions having identical shapes,wherein each of the mix region comprises a part of the kind determiningregion and a part of the element analyzing region.
 5. The objectdetermining system of claim 4, wherein the mix region has a squareshape, wherein the part of the kind determining region occupies threequarters of the mix region, and the part of the element analyzing regionoccupies one quarter of the mix region.
 6. The object determining systemof claim 1, further comprising: a main controller, served as the elementanalyzing circuit; and a sub-controller, served as the kind determiningcircuit; wherein the main controller is in a sleep mode until waked upby the sub-controller.
 7. An electronic apparatus can select anoperation mode based on object element, comprising: an objectdetermining system, comprising: an optical sensor, comprising a kinddetermining region and an element analyzing region, wherein the opticalsensor captures at least one object image of an object via the kinddetermining region, and acquires element analyzing optical data via theelement analyzing region, wherein the kind determining region and theelement analyzing region are different regions of the optical sensor; akind determining circuit, configured to determine an object kind of theobject according to the object image; and an element analyzing circuit,configured to analyze element of the object according to the elementanalyzing optical data to generate an element analyzing result; and aprocessing circuit, configured to select an operation mode of theelectronic apparatus based on the element analyzing result.
 8. Theelectronic apparatus of claim 7, wherein the electronic apparatus is anoptical tracking apparatus, wherein the processing circuit selects atracking mode of the electronic apparatus based on the element analyzingresult.
 9. The electronic apparatus of claim 7, wherein the electronicapparatus is a clean machine, wherein the processing circuit selects aclean power of the electronic apparatus based on the element analyzingresult.
 10. The electronic apparatus of claim 7, wherein the electronicapparatus is a smart wearable electronic apparatus, wherein theprocessing circuit selects a light emitting mode or a parametercalculating mode of the electronic apparatus based on the elementanalyzing result.
 11. The electronic apparatus of claim 7, wherein theelement analyzing region comprises a multi-spectral color filterprovided thereon.
 12. The electronic apparatus of claim 7, wherein theelement analyzing region is surrounding the kind determining region. 13.The electronic apparatus of claim 7, wherein the optical sensorcomprises a plurality of mix regions having identical shapes, whereineach of the mix region comprises a part of the kind determining regionand a part of the element analyzing region.
 14. The electronic apparatusof claim 13, wherein the mix region has a square shape, wherein the partof the kind determining region occupies three quarters of the mixregion, and the part of the element analyzing region occupies onequarter of the mix region.
 15. The electronic apparatus of claim 7,further comprising: a main controller, served as the element analyzingcircuit; and a sub-controller, served as the kind determining circuit;wherein the main controller is in a sleep mode until the kinddetermining circuit determining the object exists.